Stuff that happened this week

These weeks are going by fast.

At this point I almost want to just give up on my stupid weight loss goal because it basically hasn't changed, even though I feel like I'm in the best running shape of my life right now. But, I'm going to make changes to try to affect this, like making more of an effort to improve my eating habits than I have been.

So last weekend on Saturday, I went over to my local water feature at Lake Balboa to hit another milestone for my marathon training. I ran 10 miles, and it took about 2 hours and 10 minutes. In the beginning, for about 30 minutes it was raining/drizzling too. I felt good for the first hour and half, but my legs started getting a bit sore after that. By the end of my run, except for my legs, I felt like I could've kept going a lot longer than I did. Afterwards, I went to one of my favorite sandwich spots and finished a whole sandwich for lunch, but about an hour later I started getting hungry again. Maybe I should've ordered a horse. It was a good run.

Last week I also went in for a routine dentist check up. I found out I had to go in for a procedure this week because there was a complication from something I had to have done a long time ago. So on Monday I spent a couple hours at the dentist and it resulted in some stitches inside my mouth, some swelling that is still noticeable today after 3 days, and having to take antibiotics and ibuprofen for another 4 days or so. Needless to say, this has put a hamper pretty much any training for most of this week. I think my body has recovered from the 10 mile run last week, so I might try some light running or even some hill training today before heading out to class.

On an unrelated note, when I am home in the evening, a little after it gets dark, my dog Mimi starts barking to let me know that she's hungry and wants some food. Last night, it got close to 10:00pm and I didn't hear anything. I don't know exactly how old she is because we got her after she was given away by a family who didn't want to take care of her anymore, but I do know she's been showing signs of age, like less energy and reduced hearing. So, I went outside with a bowl of food and looked for her but she wouldn't come out of wherever she was in the backyard. I went over to her little dog house and it looked like she was sleeping in there so I tapped on the house a couple times and she wouldn't move. I sat there looking at her for a minute and it didn't look like she was breathing. When I reached over to try to wake her up, I immediately felt a cold, familiar, stiffness....familiar because I've had a dog that passed away before. I really loved the way she would play with me for hours and chase after the tennis ball seemingly all day long. I'll always remember the way her tongue would hang out of her mouth and she would drool after we ran around for a bit, how her legs would twitch and mimic running while she was sleeping, how she found my dad's lost reading glasses in the garden and waited at the door in the morning with them in her mouth, and the quirky things she would do when she would try to get comfortable in a particular spot or when she tried not to get wet when it was raining. I miss her already.

It is done.

I am officially registered for the 2011 LA Marathon!

Week 4

This weekend, I was able to make some progress despite the inevitable food-fest that is Superbowl Sunday.

On Friday, I woke up to the sound of my phone that ended up being the call that started what will eventually become my practicum experience for the MPH program :). I felt pretty good after that, so before I headed out to HSA to meet with group members, I decided to go for a bike ride. I didn't have a particular destination picked out, but I ended up logging about 8 miles after about 45 minutes. After I got back from HSA, I felt like I needed to do some road work before the weekend officially kicked into gear, so I decided to go running late in the afternoon that same day. This casual jog turned into a solid hour run. I need to point out that it really sucked to smell people cooking steak in their kitchen while I ran through their neighborhood.

The next day, Saturday, I had already committed to going on another MPH hike to Echo Mountain in Altadena. Despite my exercise from the previous day, I wasn't feeling sore or tired at all, so I thought it would be a nice, fun change of pace to contribute to my conditioning. Others in our group told me that our planned hike was estimated to be a ~4 hour hike. It was a much steeper climb in elevation than our other recent MPH hikes, and since it was fairly sunny, we all really worked up a sweat by the time we reached the top. However, the hike back down, which is usually much easier than going up, ended up being anything but that. Long story short, the dude in our group who was "experienced" with this particular hike decided that we would make our way down faster if we took a "shortcut" which "didn't look so tough." The descent took almost 3 hours and I could barely walk by the time we got to the bottom. Our 4 hour hike turned into a 6 hour treacherous expedition. It turned out that the unmarked trail that we followed was about a 70% grade down the side of the mountain. That was Saturday. It's now Tuesday night and I'm still uncomfortably sore. That day was easily one of the most physically demanding days of my life. I'm sure that this experience has helped better prepare me for another 5-6 hour endurance test in the near future...

Anyway, since then I've gone through a 90 minute dim sum bonanza, 3 hours of Superbowl fatty cuisine, and more undisciplined consumption of deliciousness. I really want to squeeze in some weight training this week before the weekend comes up, but I'll really have to stick to some strict time management with schoolwork, practicum, personal stuff, etc. to get that in there.

look closely and you can see the others making their way down the mountain